Alex Chalk has bought the prison service a little time – that’s all

In his House of Commons speech yesterday, Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor Alex Chalk shifted the blame for problems with our prison system, announced liberalising reforms and promised a bright future. Ultimately though he’s only bought a little time. 

Chalk began by reaffirming the government’s commitment to public protection. In a significant shift rapists will now spend their entire sentence in prison, as opposed to half of it or two-thirds. While this headline will probably prove popular, it does carry some risk: under this arrangement they will be released without any supervision from probation. There’s a chance they will be more likely to reoffend as a result, but that problem is many years away when someone else will be Justice Secretary. 

Next came the excuses. Although Chalk acknowledged that the prison population is the highest it’s ever been – twice as much as it was three decades ago – he claimed this was ‘principally’ because of the growth of the remand population (prisoners awaiting trial or sentencing).